Woman waits at BKK Airport for pick-up. For 2 months
You’ve probably felt like you waited forever for a friend or relative to pick you up at the airport. But two months? Authorities have been trying to figure out what to do with a woman who’s been waiting for her mother to pick her up at Suvarnabhumi Airport for two months now.
The woman appeared gaunt and disoriented, unable to give airport authorities much information about where she lived or who her relatives are. She said only that she was returning from abroad and that her mother had told her to wait at the airport to be picked up.
So the woman sat diligently at Gate 4 on the first floor of the giant Suvarnabhumi Airport terminal and waited. And waited. And waited.
Security guards said that they had spotted her begging arriving travellers for some money to eat. She’d even been seen shoplifting from one of the airport convenience stores, though she was not arrested or punished for the theft.
But like a scene from The Hollywood movie The Terminal, the 28 year old woman lived at the airport, unsure of what to do or where to go when her mom did not show up to pick her up.
Finally, authorities caught wind of the situation and stepped in to help her. In accordance with the Homeless Act of 2014, the stranded woman was given temporary protection by the Samut Prakan Centre for the Protection of the Homeless and Samut Prakan Children’s Home after her two-month airport ordeal.
The Paweena Foundation for Children and Women called on the heads of the children’s home and the centre for the homeless, as well as the Samut Prakan Social Development and Human Security Office to brainstorm a solution to the odd case of a woman living in the airport.
The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security stepped in to work with the foundation to try to identify who the woman is and where her mom, or any other family member, is.
